What is a Lair?

In each adventure zone of The Secret World, there are pockets of powerful creatures, seemingly drawn to specific locations. We call these pockets Lairs, and currently they're intended for small groups of 3 players in QL10 gear. In patch 1.2, they're getting a couple of significant changes we hope will make them more attractive for many players.

Right now, if you go into a Lair with a pair of friends, you can earn Signets for your QL10 gear, and you can find the ritual fragments needed summon a powerful foe; there are three such creatures in each Lair. Killing these „playfield bosses“ will win you other fragments, which can be used to summon a far more difficult challenge, currently equivalent to our Nightmare Dungeon bosses. There are three of these „regional bosses“, one in New England, Egypt, and Transylvania. The primary rewards at each of these stages are improved signets, greater challenges, and a series of excellent monster concept pieces from our talented artists.

Why change it?

When The Secret World launched, we wanted to be sure we did so with a deep and challenging endgame for groups of seriously dedicated players. We feel that our Nightmare dungeons have met that goal, and we're enthusiastic about supporting this challenging endgame for our hardcore players.

At the same time, we recognize that the high difficulty of Nightmare dungeons naturally excludes some of our players. Some people don't like the intense build requirements of Nightmares, or don't have the time to dedicate a few hours per night to wiping on the Ur Draug. When we launched, there was not a whole lot of focused, endgame content for these players to participate in.

What's changing?

The intention going forwards is that Lairs should offer a full endgame progression for casual players of The Secret World. With that intention in mind:
 

• Lairs are now for groups of 5 players. The new Looking for Groups (LFG) tool in patch 1.2 should make finding those groups of 5 a little easier than before.
• Each Lair's distance from nearby Anima Wells has been evaluated. Lairs deemed too far have had a new Anima Well added. This should ease the punishment of wipes, and players can also use this Anima Well to „meet up“ and get started with their Lair more quickly.
• Each Lair is launching with a new item mission in it, and we will expand to three missions total. Each of these missions will reward you with Ritual Fragments to help you summon the Playfield Bosses in the Lair.
• Lairs now provide loot progression; everything you need for your next stage of the Lair can be found at your current stage. To be specific:

• Standard Lair mobs are balanced for a full set of greens and signets. They have a chance of dropping BoP blues, as well as green signets and Playfield Boss ritual fragments.
• Playfield Bosses (3 in each Lair) are balanced for mostly greens, with a few blue talismans. They are guaranteed to drop a few Bind on Pick-up (BoP) blues, a blue signet, and Regional Boss ritual fragments.
• Regional Bosses (1 each in New England, Egypt, and Transylvania) are balanced for a full set of blue gear. They are guaranteed to drop a few BoP quality level 10 purples, a purple signet, and few ritual fragments to make these bosses easier to resummon.
• Regional Bosses also drop strange and powerful ritual fragments- even though the magic of this ritual doesn't yet function, who knows when their latent power might activate again...

What's not changing?

We're keeping Nightmare dungeons hard. If you're enjoying the challenge and requirements of our current Nightmare dungeons, then don't worry- we like them too. Elite and Nightmare dungeons, because they require more gear, skill, and coordination, should also be a faster way to get your gear than the new Lairs.

Additionally, the experience of the Lair should remain the same, only more accessible. Lairs are still open-world areas filled with powerful creatures requiring a specific approach. Players will still be able to search for missing Ritual Fragments and summon an ever more powerful string of opponents.

If you haven't checked out our Lairs in The Secret World yet, we hope you'll give them a try after 1.2.  If you've been enjoying them, you can now rest assured there's even more reward for you if you continue... including maybe a thing or two for your shiny new rocket launcher.